Revenge made Kiss relevant again. 1982’s Creatures of The Night and 1983’s Lick It Up, re-established Kiss as a force to be reckoned with in the Eighties.

MTV was the outlet, and every time Lick it Up came on, it made me stop and watch. This was all about the music. The band had removed their make-up and they needed to make a statement. Lick It Up was that statement. That crunchy and distorted guitar from Vinnie Vincent is what makes the song roll. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before Vincent was shifted. It’s like Gene Simmons can’t handle having talented people around me for a long period of time. Gene likes to rewrite history that Vinnie Vincent’s contribution to KISS was as a salary paid employee, however the music doesn’t lie.

Life’s such a treat and it’s time you taste itThere ain’t a reason on earth to waste it

We all know what Paul is saying in the lyrics to the women in the world. Make sure that no mess is left ladies.

By the time the keyboard heavy Crazy Nights (1987) and the pop metal Hot In The Shade (1989) came out, fans started to accuse the band of following whatever MTV trend was popular at the time.

Crazy Crazy Nights to me was so hooky and it was as good as anything else that was in the Charts at that time. I personally love the song, and this is in the era, post the Slippery When Wet explosion. It just reminds me of good times and crazy days, sort of like how Tesla’s Lazy Days and Crazy Nights song does. Listening to the Crazy Crazy Nights song today (I did an Eighties’ CD for my wife and this song was one of the songs I put on it) it just reminds me of how busy my life has come to be, where most of the time I am running on empty or caffeine. It would good to be able to kick back and relax.

They try to tell us we don’t belong,That’s alright, we’re millions strongThis is my music, it makes me proud,These are my people and this is my crowd

A song for the rock show, making the people believe that they belong here. Crazy Crazy Nights was co-written by Paul Stanley and Adam Mitchell who he used on the Creatures of the Night album as well. Going back to the well that gave birth to quality previously, is a good thing.

Going back to the Revenge album. The Nineties had a massive paradigm shift in the music business. Kiss, now had to compete with bands that released game changing albums. Nirvana released Nevermind and Pearl Jam released Ten bringing Grunge and Alternative Rock to the masses. U2 released Achtung Baby, Red Hot Chilli Peppers released Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Metallica released the Black album, The Cult release Ceremony, Guns N Roses released the Use Your Illusion I and II albums, Ozzy Osbourne released No More Tears, Skid Row released Slave To The Grind, Pantera released A Vulgar Display of Power and Van Halen released For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. The majority of the albums had a heavy rock feel and in the case of Van Halen it was return to the brown sound.

Coming into the recording process of Revenge, Kiss already had some momentum going with God Gave Rock N Roll To You, which appeared in the movie, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey in 1991. The song is an Russ Ballard composition for the band Argent, however additional credit is given to Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and Bob Ezrin. Argent at that time was trying to follow up their mega hit, Hold Your head Up, so when God Gave Rock And Roll To You came out, it bombed. However the song is a great song, and it is a good thing that Kiss rescued it and turned it into a hit.

For Kiss to be relevant in the Nineties, they had to do something different, so they hired a marketing consultant firm to find out what the fans wanted. The answers came back. The fans wanted more Demon, more heaviness, more rock and an album to rival 1976’s Destroyer. It was time to get the team together. Bob Ezrin who produced the epic Destroyer and the terrible Music From The Elder was hired to produce.

The biggest decision made was to use the fantastic, talented and egotistical Vinnie Vincent as a songwriter. Simmons and Stanley realised that Vincent’s contributions to the Creatures of The Night and Lick It Up albums, had produced songs that have become some of the best and well known Kiss songs in recent memory. The sinister single opener Unholy was written by Simmons and Vincent. It is heavy, it is evil and it fit perfectly in the current music climate at the time.

You send your children to warTo serve bastards and whores

It’s a tough lyric line. There is that devilish theme throughout the song.

Other classic Vincent penned songs that appear on Revenge are Heart of Chrome is written by Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent and Bob Ezrin, while I Just Wanna is written by Paul Stanley and Vinnie Vincent.

It is a shame that this song writing partnership went sour so quickly again, and they haven’t collaborated since.

Revenge is Kiss being themselves and by doing that, they made a record that satisfied the hard core fan bases and somehow also fitted in with the times,

Of course, the album is also in memory to drummer Eric Carr, who passed away due to cancer, before the recording process started. Eric Singer took his place in the band and he has been with Kiss, since then. How good was the Badlands project that Eric Singer was in, with Jake E.Lee, Ray Gillen and Greg Chaisson? However that is for another day.

There is a recent Dear Guitar Hero article with Tommy Thayer in the Guitar World, May 2013 issue. The interview was conducted by Brad Angle.

QUESTION: Is it true that you did manual labor tasks at Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley’s houses before becoming a member of Kiss? (Tony Ratoni)

ANSWER: Those are kind of urban myths. Sure, I started working for those guys part time in the late Eighties, an my credo was that I’d do whatever needed to be done. And a lot of times when you’re in those situations you do all kinds of things. I think, somehow, through all the speculation on the internet, people started saying that i did all these strange jobs. But nothing was strange. I was just a go-getter that would do whatever task was at hand, which is normal if you wanna get somewhere in your life. I’m proof that persistence works.

So all you wannabe artists, are you prepared to persevere. If you want to be rich, take up banking or get involved technology. Hell, tech heads are the new rock stars. They are the cool ones, the ones that people want to hang with as they are rolling in the cash. If you want to be somebody in music, you need to persevere. Tommy Thayer was a go-getter for Kiss. Gene Simmons signed his band Black and Blue and produced two mediocre albums. He even took one of the Black N Blue songs he co-wrote and called it Domino on Revenge with only himself as the writer. Tommy Thayer then played the tribute circuit in a Kiss cover band. This is a period now that is spanning from 84 to 2000. In 2002 he made his debut as the new Spaceman for Kiss. He didn’t quit. He kept on making connections. He kept at it.

There is a comment on the Persistence and the Meaning of making it post, where Robakers mentioned the persistence of Lars Ulrich in getting Metallica off the ground. This is so true. Everyone seems to forget that part of Lars. He was once a kid, that built connections around the NWOBM music that he was interested in. He surrounded himself with like minded people. Eventually one of those people started a label. Then they where doing a compilation album. The rest is history.

These days, everyone remembers Lars as the guy that sued his own fans when Napster came on the scene. That is because, Lars wanted to be part of the corporate elite. Lars wanted to hang with the rich because he thought it was cool and the rich wanted to hang with Lars as they thought it was cool to hang with a rock star. Instead of Lars being the stiff middle finger hero to his fans against the corporations, he became one of them.

Its all about the show. A lot of bands just write songs and then you have Paul Stanley who wrote songs for the show. The intro is built for explosions, pyro and fire. The story behind Detroit Rock City is legend by now and from tragedy you get a song stands the test of time. 37 years later it is still relevant and the Kiss fan that got killed on his way to the concert will never be forgotten. Credit must be given to Bob Ezrin as well. Apart from being the producer, he also was a co songwriter on this song, and the task master on Destroyer. Coming into the Destroyer album of 1976, Bob Ezrin was coming off his recent successes with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed. Of course Ezrin would go on to greater fame with Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

It doesn’t matter what you do or sayJust forget the things that you’ve been toldWe can’t do it any other wayEverybody’s got to rock and roll, whoo, oh, oh

Shout It Out Loud is one of those songs that just endure. Rock N Roll was all about doing things that the conservatives wouldn’t do. The history of rock music is littered with the same themes. It doesn’t matter what the people in power say, we will try to do it in our own way. This song was penned by Paul, Gene and Bob. All the big songs from Destroyer had an Ezrin co-write. These themes popped up again in I Wanna Rock and You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll from Twisted Sister.

You know your man is workin’ hardHe’s worth a deuce

As described by Gene Simmons Deuce was a popular street term in the early 1970s meaning fellatio and full sex afterwards. This song is penned by Gene Simmons only. It has also endured through the 40 odd years. Will a song be written like Deuce these days? Probably not. Everyone wants to be liked these days and they do stuff that is politically correct. Music is never about toeing the line. There are artists out there that do it their own way but these are outliers. They could rise amongst all the others or they could be forgotten or they could change and be part of the masses.

She can move you and improve youWith her love and her devotionAnd she’ll thrill you and she’ll chill youBut you’re headed for commotion

And you’ll need her so you’ll feed herWith your endless dedicationAnd the quicker you get sickerShe’ll remove your medication

Get the firehouse‘Cause she sets my soul afireGet the firehouseAnd the flames keep gettin’ higher

The usual concert staple where Gene Simmons ‘spits’ fire and sings about the slaves men have become to women, relationships and sex. It’s so true, we are so addicted to being loved or to having a sexual relationship, we will change and bend who we and then we get burned. You can even see we think a lot with our penises. Another Kiss classic penned by Paul Stanley, who to me is an underrated songwriter when he goes it alone.

I rode the highway to heartacheI took a trip on the ship of fools, woah yeah!And I paid the price to have my way‘Cause money makes the rules, yeah!

Hell or Hallelujah is probably the best song Kiss has written since the Revenge album. Psycho Circus is a close second. It’s good to see Paul Stanley going alone again with the writing, instead of a list of outside writers, like he has done for a long time. Life is about paying your dues, it’s about accumulating experiences. What price are we prepared to pay to have it our own way?

How true is the last lyric line? Money makes the rules. There is a story at the Wall Street Journal stating that “nine executives at private-equity firms together will take home more than $1 billion in dividends and compensation from last year”. Money buys rules. How many of the architects of the GFC got punished. Instead they got bailouts, generous severance payments and are doing College tours of the US. On the other side of the coin, you had people lose their houses, their families, their lives and their sanity.

So if you please get on your kneesThere are no bills, there are no feesBaby, I know what your problem isThe first step of the cure is a kiss

So call me (Dr. Love)They call me Dr. Love (calling Dr. Love)

Calling Dr. Love is rock n roll all the way through. With its Cold Ethyl borrowed riff and the usual subject matter about sex, this Gene Simmons penned tune follows all the rhyming clichés. This was on the Eddie Kramer produced Rock N Roll Over. That album didn’t stand a chance as a follow up to Destroyer.

I was born to the human raceLivin’ life feelin’ out of placePeople said I was wasting my timeLooking to find my kind

Outta This World is a song that sounds forced and fake. This Tommy Thayer penned tune is a sad imitation to the real Space Man. As much as Gene and Paul spin it, there is only one space man and that is Ace Frehley. It is a shame that Ace doesn’t recognise his value to the Kiss Army. Even the banks are foreclosing on his home. So you have an ex member of one of the biggest bands in the land, that sell everything that they can think off, and his home is getting foreclosed. Are Gene and Paul doing creative accounting in this or is Ace just silly with his money.

Get up!Now it’s time for me to take my placeThe make-up runnin’ down my faceWe’re exiled from the human race.

You’re in the psyYou’re in the psycho circusI say welcome to the show.

Step up!No one leaves ’til the night is doneThe amplifier starts to humThe carnival has just begun.

Psycho Circus is about the rock experience. It’s about the rock heads. It’s about how the establishments treated us as exiles from the human race, before the bankers all wanted a piece of it and made it mainstream. Then our rock idols also wanted to become bankers. The rock show was a circus, it was a place to let our hair down and be as one. This was penned by Paul Stanley and Curtis Cuomo. Cuomo also co wrote a lot of songs on the Carnival of Souls album that didn’t get any attention due to all the hoopla of the original band reunion. Psycho Circus was produced by Bruce Fairbairn and in the end he couldn’t save it either. As much as it was hyped as a reunion Ace was more or less absent again from most of the recordings with Tommy Thayer doing most of the leads. I didn’t mind Psycho Circus but as with every follow up album to a mega successful one it has a lot to live up too. The intention of Psycho Circus was never to sell truckloads of albums. It was all about putting the make up on again and being KISS.

I love it loud, I wanna hear it loud, right between the eyesLoud, I wanna hear it loud, I don’t want to compromise

Turn it up, hungry for the medicineTwo fisted to the very endNo more treated like aliens, we’re not gonna take it ‘cos

I Love It Loud, I Wanna Rock, We’re Not Gonna Take It and many other songs shared similar themes. Kiss need to really credit Vinnie Vincent for their resurrection in the early 80’s. I Love It Loud was penned by Gene Simmons and Vinnie Vincent. This song is from Creatures of The Night. Even though Ace is credited on album sleeves it was Vinnie Vincent that brought the guns and had Kiss firing on all cylinders again.

They try to tell us we don’t belong,That’s alright, we’re millions strongThis is my music, it makes me proud,These are my people and this is my crowd

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

Again another song for the rock show, making the people believe that they belong here. Crazy Nights was co written by Paul Stanley and Adam Mitchell who he used on the Creatures of the Night album as well. Live this song didn’t go down to good. They key they where doing the song in was all wrong, Paul even had a capo on his guitar (which isn’t very ROCK N ROLL) and everything was just out of key. You can tell that the band was put off.

Better watch out ’cause I’m a war machine

That is how the rockers and metal heads felt. Indestructible war machines. It was an elite club once, and when the bankers and others wanted a piece of it, we didn’t like it. Our heroes took the bankers in and they started to treat the real fans like cattle. There is no other way to describe it. Just look back to our record collection of the mid 80’s onwards and what you have is an album with 2 to 4 good songs and the rest is pure filler. Of course there where always albums that rose above this, like Slippery When Wet, New Jersey, Dr Feelgood, Hysteria, Appetite for Destruction, Master of Puppets and many others. Thank god the internet came and levelled the playing field once again. War Machine is one of the most heaviest songs in the Kiss arsenal, up there with Unholy, yet it was co-written by Gene Simmons, Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. The heaviest song Kiss has was written by a pop duo.

You pull the trigger of myLove gun, (love gun), love gun

Another Paul Stanley classic, penned on his own. It’s part of pop culture now. You pull the trigger of my love gun. Growing up in the 80’s I cant recall how many times I used this line on the opposite sex, only to get laughs instead of the actual deed.

You show us everything you’ve gotYou keep on dancing and the room gets hotYou drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy

You keep on shouting, you keep on shoutingI wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

Rock and Roll All Nite was co-written by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. These two guys need to do more co-writing together. This is what we wanted to do. No one wanted to work nine to five jobs. We all wanted to be musicians. Kiss wrote the anthem for it. To me the Rock n Roll all night isn’t about rocking per se, it is about getting down and having dirty sex.

Lick It Up – kneel at the altar of Vinnie Vincent. Gene likes to rewrite history that Vinnie Vincent’s contribution to KISS was as a salary paid employee, however the music doesn’t lie. The songs that have Vincent’s involvement are a step above the other songs Kiss released in the 80’s and the 90’s. Paul Stanley and Vinnie Vincent wrote this song. The good thing about the Lick It Up album is that it was all written within the band. That is why it works. Lick It Up was their big album in the 80’s. The best songs on Creatures of the Night were also co – written by Vincent and the best songs on Revenge where also co- written by Vincent. Of course Revenge was their big album of the 90’s.

Don’t wanna wait ’til you know me betterLet’s just be glad for the time togetherLife’s such a treat and it’s time you taste itThere ain’t a reason on earth to waste it

We all know what Paul is saying in the lyrics to the women in the world. Make sure that no mess is left ladies. This song killed it when it got started.

Black Diamond is another Paul Stanley penned tune. In the concert Eric Singer sang the song, and I must say I was impressed with his vocal abilities.

Out on the streets for a livingPicture’s only begunYour day is sorrow and madnessGot you under their thumb

I must say Eric Singer played the part of Catman perfectly. If Peter Criss was there or not, I don’t think it matters, however for some reason, Tommy Thayer pretending to be the Spaceman, matters. I am still trying to work this one out.

And the show comes to an end. I looked over at my boys and they had Joker style grins from ear to ear. They were tired at midnight, but pumped. For an eight and seven year old, they are just starting out. To me, it was great to experience the concert with them. Kiss and Motley have the biggest arena shows and it was a perfect first concert for my boys. Kiss where far superior on the night, more professional and tighter.

To me, one of the best concerts i went to was a Black Crowes gig at the Wollongong Entertainment Center where about 1000 tickets where sold in a venue that holds about 10,000. The band went on and they played and they jammed, extending their songs and just having fun. They played all of their hits, but they didn’t play them the same as the album. The band had fun doing their extended jams and the audience had fun along with them. This is an important fact that seems to be missing from concerts these days. Kiss might as well have lip synced as they didn’t really do anything different with the material.